Passed by Congress in 1854, the
Kansas-Nebraska Act has been called the most momentous piece of
legislation in the United States before the American Civil War. It
set in motion events that led directly to the conflict over slavery.

In January 1854, with the support of
President Franklin Pierce, Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois
laid before the Senate a report of the Committee on Territories.
This provided for the organization of the territories of Kansas and
Nebraska. The bill allowed the people of these regions to decide
whether they would allow slavery within their borders. The bill as
finally enacted into a law expressly repealed the Missouri
Compromise, which had prohibited slavery north of latitude 36o 30'.
A whole generation had regarded the Missouri Compromise as a binding
agreement between the North and the South.

The news that such an act was being
considered fell like a thunderbolt upon the people of the North.
Ministers preached against the "Nebraska iniquity," and Douglas was
accused of weakly yielding to the South in the hope of winning the
presidency.

In spite of Northern anger, Congress passed
the bill on May 30, 1854. The fight over slavery was then
transferred to the two territories. Proslavery supporters of the
South and antislavery supporters of the North rushed into Kansas.
Each side determined to win the state. The first elections, in 1855,
were carried by the settlers from the South, aided by the "border
ruffians" of Missouri. They crossed the border the night before
election and seized the polls, illegally casting their votes for a
proslavery candidate for governor.

The settlers from the North refused to
accept the results of this fraudulent election. They held an
election of their own, at which the proslavery supporters refused to
vote. As a result two rival governments were set up in the
territory, and a civil war began. The antislavery party under the
leadership of John Brown returned violence for the violence of the
proslavery supporters. The attention of the whole country was fixed
on "bleeding Kansas."

The settlers from the South were supported
by President Pierce. Eventually he sent federal troops into the
territory to quell the disturbance and to disperse the free-state
legislature. A new election was then called. Again the illegal
methods of the proslavery party won the day. Congress refused to
recognize the constitution adopted by such methods as legal, and
Kansas was forced to remain a territory.

As time went on, the free-state settlers
became more numerous, and finally the South gave up the attempt to
make Kansas a slave state. A new constitution was then drawn up, and
on Jan. 29, 1861, on the eve of the Civil War, Kansas was admitted
to the Union as a free state.